Wednesday 30 March 2011

Japanese frogs

entered into this blog's search box will bring up the October 2008 poem: 'How can I dream when I can't even sleep at night?'

Please re-enjoy as we hurtle towards doomsday.

Tuesday 29 March 2011

Misinformation and Disinformation

We are being brainwashed into 'thinking' that the unfolding Japanese nuclear disaster was due to an unforeseen 8.9 or 9.0 earthquake, and that the unforeseen fault was that the reactor(s) was/were 'designed' for a 'normal' maximum 7.5 earthquake (or some such scenario as they would have us believe).

This is a dangerous lie being trotted out as fact by those in receipt of nuclear industry honoraria. The early critics have all but disappeared from our TV screens. Even the BBC, a source I thought I could trust, was seriously back pedaling 3 or 4 days into the crisis. This was a news policy change which took place faster than you can say nuclear meltdown.

Overnight Aunty Beeb became Fox News. Right wing idiots were brought in to espouse right wing idiocy. And it wasn't very funny to watch. It was like a rerun of an old Benny Hill show.

And so, the RT Link duly appeared above.

What undid Fukoshima was a Tsunami. And the simple fact of the matter is that no-one can design a plant that can stand up to an overwhelming wall of water moving at 200 miles an hour when each cubic meter of water weighs 1 tonne. That is a weight of one tonne per cubic meter when stationary. Do the maths!

Remember these words: Misinformation and Disinformation. You'll be hearing them a lot when the truth gets out; which it will!

Schrottmeiler

A Schrottmeiler is a nuclear power reactor past it's sell-by-date. You can liken it to the old banger on a used car lot; the heap of the week. A spray over to camouflage the extra welding or cover the patches of rust, a handful of sawdust in the gearbox, new rubbers on the pedals, and the clock wound back by 80,000 miles. And the guarantee; the next mug will buy it.

When it comes to buying electricity generated from nuclear power plants the situation in many countries is no better. There are Schrottmeilers (Schrott, by the way, is the German word for scrap metal) to be found all over that part of Eastern Europe that was, like Chernobyl, behind the old Iron Curtain.

One Schrottmeiler, working erratically between shutdowns, this time in Bulgaria, was featured recently on TV. It appeared to be in a state of advanced neglect and decay. Your garden shed probably has better wiring and fuses.

And to think that we all thought and believed that the IAEA went around the world checking the safety aspects of these 40-year old heaps of electrical junk. It's laughable now but we really did think and believe it. We thought it was what the IAEA did. They gave us the impression that's what they did; that they were the experts. Yes, we the people really thought the IAEA protected us against the nuclear industry's worst excesses.

What gullible fools we were!

The crisis in Japan has now forced the German leader Merkel to quickly backtrack on her original plan to keep Germany's old Schrottmeilers in extended service. But will others follow her lead?

Monday 28 March 2011

Spellchecker


"...Fukushima or Nukushima?"

Playing with people's lives

Masao Okabe spent 9 years taking 4,000 rubbings of all the stone squares of the old Ujina Railway Station platform. The following poem (now revised) appeared in my 2008 published book Genteel Messages (unfortunately now out of print) and in, I think 2010, on this blog. The situation at Fukoshima: In what appears to be a desperate attempt to alleviate a nuclear checkmate, also known as a worst case scenario experts from EVN (France) have finally and urgently been requested by Japan. We can only hope this is not a case of pride going before fall. Today's Japan earthquakes include a 6.5 (depth 6km) "near to Honshou east coast"!

Okabe's Frottage Sites


Okabe's pencil blurs rapidly over a surface

and an image appears on paper; every

stone leaves a unique imprint; just like

your thoughts.


There's a row of stones to see; square blocks

from the old Ujina Station; platform stones

that survived the time

of the dark face of the light. And


there's a map to see

with many delta rivers shown in red; it's

covered too with concentric rings

to pinpoint the centre

of the target.


Okabe rubs in other places; the Post Office

Savings Bank and the Red Cross Hospital

on Hijiyama Hill


around the A-Bomb Dome.


Okabe seeks to know

if there is a future

for our past.


_____

gw2011

Sunday 27 March 2011

Berkland's earthquake prediction



Jim Berkland's 'window' for a major USA/Mexico Earthquake closed yesterday. But today there was a 5.8 in Mexico. Not what you'd call "major" but the Pacific Ring of Fire may yet have the final say. Fiji, for instance, has experienced 3 more earthquakes recently. The ferocity of Japanese aftershocks is decreasing to mainly 4's and 5's.

Within Berkland's dangerous period there was a major 7.1 earthquake in Burma. Fortunately this appears to have been in a remote area and the final death toll could be in the low hundreds. Many isolated communities have still to be reached. The quake was also felt in Laos and Thailand.


Saturday 26 March 2011

Chernobyl

I remember
Chernobyl
and how we found out
that we on the door stoop
knew virtually
nowt
and how that came about
when a radio-
active
cloud was detected
in Finland's far north.

Now don't get me wrong
I'm not one to harp on
but Finland's
a land
up near the North Pole
and Chernobyl
is a long way
from there!

Then I remembered
that someone said "Trust us!"

and "We'll make doubly sure
the correct information gets out

in the unlikely event
of such a thing happening
again!"
_____
gw2011
Today the evacuation zone at Fukushima has been increased from 20km to 30km. Residents living between 20km and 30 km were previously advised "to stay indoors". The USA is advising its citizens not to go within 80km of Fukushima. A slight discrepancy then. Personally, I'd err on the side of caution. But then I've nothing to worry about - apart from depleted uranium being blown my way on the Mistral.
A WEATHER LINK WITH MAPS SHOWING THE PATHS AND ALTITUDES OF THE VARIOUS FUKUSHIMA CLOUDS IS NOW LINKED AT TOP RT. JUST IN CASE THEY 'FORGET' TO TELL US!

Thursday 24 March 2011

Earthquakes continue...

Another 15 earthquakes off Japan today!

Today's newly reported 7.1 earthquake in Thailand is most probably the 7.0 earthquake that Intellicast.com is now reporting from Myanmar (Burma). This will be Myanmar's 4th significant earthquake in less than 3 hours. Some early reports speak of 70 dead.

'Experts' at Fukushima now finally admit, 11 days after the explosion, that a reactor core 'may' have been breached. It's not clear what the word 'may' actually means at TEPCO. It appears that a possible breach 'may' have happened on 14th March when a reactor (was it no.3?) exploded.

As with their numbers the truth 'may' mean nothing at TEPCO. History proves this 'may' be so.

Nuclear Update 25.3.2011:
And now the latest official TEPCO pronouncement from the slow moving daily spokesman in his heavy blue overalls is that the situation at Fukushima is "unforeseeable". Well, pardon me sitting here this morning in my 100% E-cotton t-shirt made in non-nuclear Bangladesh, but we who remember Chernobyl have been saying exactly the same thing for at least 2 weeks.

Death of a bear called Knut

A polar bear is dead.
He died in Berlin Zoo aged 4
- Knut is no more.

They'll cut him open now.
Some official reason for their sudden loss -
They must underscore

The fact that Knut died not
Of stress or broken heart
When he searched those crowds once more

In vain for the one who'd bottle-fed him
When he was small
And played those games with him upon the prison floor.

Authority had said
That Knut had grown too big to play.
This was official - and Authority (as always) knows

What's best for man and beast.
Two friends from different worlds
Nevermore will roll and hug upon the floor.

_______
gw2011
Knut's keeper Thomas Dörflein, 44, died suddenly in September 2008. The Zoo had ruled that Knut, at 120kg, was too BIG to play any more wrestling games with Dörflein. The Zoo's takings were up nearly 30% during the time of Knut.
Another bear, Bruno the brown bear was in recent years shot dead by Bavarian sharpshooters lying in wait for him, when he crossed over the German border having wandered over the Alps from Italy (he killed a few lambs on the way it must be admitted. But even a bear has to eat). The use of a tranquilizer dart to subdue Bruno was deemed too risky.
And also recently, in Austria some 20 bears belonging to the WWF went missing. We can safely presume they are also dead. So what is it about *European bears? In Yellowstone (USA) they run around like celebrities.

*or European people.

Self-Pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

_____
D H Lawrence
Pansies 1929

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Earthquakes

We are rapidly approaching a peak period of risk as forecast by earthquake watchers. Geologists may disagree. It is not an exact science. But we can say without contradiction that the situation is abnormal - for example yesterday the 22nd produced 4 serious earthquakes (intensity 6.6, 6.4, 6.4, 6.1) in the Japan area. The current hyperactive situation shows no signs of slowdown.

Fortunately the Sun obligingly played its part a few days ago when it ejected a major outburst of plasma away from the Earth.

Keep yourself up to date with the EMSC link!

e.g. today: Crete 4.3, depth 1km!

Tuesday 22 March 2011

D H Lawrence on the nail!

When I read of the latest European Union scandals in last weekend's Sunday Times - thank you Rupert Murdoch and congratulations on your 80th birthday! - I called yet again on my long past-aching head for an articulate observation to clarify it all, but this time I needn't have bothered.

The indomitable D H Lawrence, a favourite poet hereabouts and featured many times on the Poet-in-Residence blog had already nailed it all down; and as fast a horseshoe. Please take a look at some of DHL's best work via the blog search box if you haven't already done so.

Lord Tennyson and Lord Melchett

'Dost tha hear my horse's feet, as he canters away?
Property! Property! Property! that's what they seem to say!'

Do you hear my Rolls-Royce purr, as it glides away?
- I lick the cream off property! that's what it seems to say!

______
D H Lawrence (from More Pansies 1932)


Saturday 19 March 2011

IAEA Slow to React

nuclear winter
of discontent

my stick snaps

Can we trust the UN's nuclear watchdog the IAEA? This question must be asked.

Today it is obvious to all that the IAEA acted much too late. It was 6 days before its Japanese leader arrived in his homeland "to take a look". It was 3 or 4 days before press conferences at the IAEA's HQ in Vienna got underway. The so-called "daily updates", when they came, were a mixture of disinformation and no information.

Japan, we were always told was in the forefront of nuclear safety and technology. But now as the plutonium melts in Fukushima we are discovering that this is an illusion. One TEPCO* scandal and cover-up after another is being revealed. Radiation leaks and other significant problems in the Japanese nuclear reactors have been routinely covered-up for decades; they have either not been reported, or when they have, they have been consistently down played. False information, like the radiation, has all too often been released. And this in a country we thought we could trust. We have all been betrayed.

But the real problem is even more alarming. The plain truth is that when it comes to nuclear energy we cannot rely on the IAEA and we cannot rely on the countries themselves to oversee the industry. In fact we cannot rely on anybody!

One of my recent posts (somewhere below) shows a grim list of countries with nuclear reactors. Look carefully at the names on the list. How many of these countries do you trust? How many of them can even approach the abysmal TEPCO standard?

The watchdog guards only its home on the Danube.

Who shall raise the alarm?

_____
gw2011
*Tokyo Electric Power Company

First foodstuffs being found with dangerous levels of radioactivity include milk and spinach.

Friday 18 March 2011

haiku

lively ants
on her kitchen table

and in the sink


_____
gw2011
Saturday's full moon will be "closest to Earth for 18 years" (NASA).
Spring tides highest 20th/21st.

Thursday 17 March 2011

OFUKU

From the old girl now
the last revengeful bursts

from the splintered concrete
of her mirrored and crackled face

this magnolia blossom spring
which sees her spike-grey eyes stare out

upon the rumbling sea
and her white-grey hair plumed up

and brushed in early spring's pacific winds
now currently prevailing
_____
gw2011
After Ted Hughes' poem Thistles
WODWO 1967 Faber & Faber

Close Encounter with 2011 EB47

Asteroid narrowly misses Earth-facing side of Moon!

2011 EB47 is the official name given by NASA to the "house-sized asteroid"* discovered two days ago and which NASA described as having "zoomed by the Earth" about 21:47 GMT yesterday.

In reality the asteroid "zoomed" by the Earth-facing side of the Moon, its intersecting path being roughly 7/8ths of the way to there.

So what shall we name this lump of heavenly rock?

'2011 EB47' hardly does our visitor justice.

There can be only one answer. And that is: **Montezuma

______
*14 mtrs diameter is the official size of the object.
**Montezuma II (1479-1520 last Aztec emperor of Mexico).

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Reactors were designed for submarines!

Nuclear industry yes-men are currently being trotted out to pacify the world via the world's radio and TV stations.

These people, squirming and shambling, are in obvious denial.

A few others are telling the truth. But the question is: Where can they tell it from?

One voice crying in the wilderness is that of Prof. Walt Patterson whose interview I was fortunately able to see on the Russian television station RT. He told me that the reactors were designed for submarines. He told me that the nuclear energy industry's track record is not good. He told me that there were, and are, safety problems. He told me that the reactors are expensive and unreliable. He told me that a reactor could "lose" 1,000 megawatts in 2 minutes. And he told me many other things that made my hair stand on end.

So here are two questions:

Why has the USA not ordered a single nuclear reactor since 1978?

Why has the USA cancelled all reactors ordered since 1974?

EU, including UK, please take note!

____________
Keep checking:
below at the post ALMOST GAME OVER or with the RT link above rt.

A grim list

'Officially' there are 442 nuclear plants in service. Another 65 are under construction. So where are they all? Or at least the ones we know about. Some of the locations will surprise you. According to the IAEA's own figures 20%, that is at least 88 of them, are situated in areas of seismic activity.

Curious fact: The tiny country of Belgium has 7. Did you know that? And if you did have you ever wondered why this is so? And how it was achieved?

Curious fact: Spain, a land blessed with continuous sunshine and also winds from Africa and the Atlantic has 8. Again, you may wonder.

Curious fact: Slovenia has only one. It is situated on a seismic fault line. Why?

USA - 104
France - 58
Japan - 54
Russia - 32
S. Korea - 21
India - 20
UK - 19
Canada - 18
Germany - 17
Ukraine - 15
China - 13
Sweden - 10
Spain - 8
Belgium - 7
Czech - 6
Taiwan - 6
Switzerland - 5
Finland - 4
Hungary - 4
Slovakia - 4
Argentina - 2
Brazil - 2
Bulgaria - 2
Mexico - 2
Pakistan - 2
Rumania - 2
S. Africa - 2
Armenia - 1
Holland - 1
Slovenia - 1

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Let there be light!

Of Electrical Knowledge

On the trees

there were hanging pears
which glowed with light
many hours of light
per precious fruit
or at least there were
until the banker whispered
in the grower's ear
"with inferior fruit
on tangled trees -
3 times less juice
will bring us ease!"
_____
gw2011
This light bulb scam, when the life of an average light bulb was found to be too long and was consequently reduced almost overnight from 3,000 hours to 1,000 hours, took place not long after the invention of the electric light bulb and involved all the world's major light bulb manufacturers. It illustrates an international manufacturing policy which is called 'Design to Fail'. For example there may well be a computer chip in your inkjet printer (placed there under a pretext) that will cause the machine to fail on the appointed day.

Monday 14 March 2011

Not the end says Yukiya Amano

Today, at long last, Yukiya Amano, an ex-Japanese diplomat and the current head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency here in Vienna stepped forward to tell the WORLD that the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan did not herald the end of the nuclear energy industry.

The IAEA, so far silent, promised that from now on updates on the situation would be given to the media once every twenty-four hours starting tomorrow afternoon. ***

A scandalous situation!

This macabre piece of black theatre shows that the United Nations' nuclear flagship the IAEA and its leader Yukiya Amano are completely out of touch with reality.

Meantime Switzerland has said that it has suspended it's atomic energy programme with a view to reducing it's dependency on nuclear fuels.

Germany has announced that it will take out of service 7 reactors as a first step and other closures may follow. Other European countries are sure to follow these examples.

The call now is for the EU to bring into effect a programme of closures throughout the Union.

***No need to wait for the daily spin from IAEA's Amano. Poet-in-Residence updates are already being posted at ALMOST GAME OVER 2 posts below this one.

Omen

After reading this post you might search the word 'Bohunice' in the blog search box. You will find there an example (in poetry form) of potential danger here in Europe.

the sky darkened
and the crows
were restless, excited

haiku based on one of the first eye witness reports I heard on the news
- the sky darkening reminds me of the report of the earthquake at the
time of Jesus' crucifixion

good may yet come out of this tragedy - it may bring the uneasy
relationship between Japan and China to some kind of normality

Sunday 13 March 2011

ALMOST GAME OVER

6th UPDATE: 17th March. After 6 days of inactivity the Japanese IAEA leader Amano leaves Vienna, Austria, bound for Japan. Meanwhile 'Wikileaks' releases papers re high-level India politicians allegedly involved in US nuclear energy payments scandal.

5th UPDATE: 17:00 CET 16th March. Partial meltdown in 2 reactors. Situation "out of control". "Catastrophe could arrive within a few hours." (EU Energy Commissioner's announcement - later withdrawn). Is this a sign of panic or is it reality? Only time will tell.

4th UPDATE: 16th March. RT reports this morning's radiation levels at Tokyo Airport 11 x normal and 100 miles north of Tokyo 300 x normal. Latest news bulletin at youtube.com/rt (or via link at top rt) also carries accounts of cover-ups and scandals at TEPCO, including as recently as 2003.

3rd UPDATE: 14:00 CET 15th March. - IAEA which is in fact a lobby for the nuclear energy industry is to hold its long awaited press conference here in Vienna in 90 minutes time. It is expected that it will give the unfolding nuclear catastrophe a score* of 6 on its own doomsday scenario scale. USA's 3 Mile Island scored a 5. Ukraine's Chernobyl 7.

*IAEA's assessment - Fukushima's doomsday rating is level 4. France rates it a 6. Who do you believe?

2nd UPDATE: 07:00 CET 16th March. - Following 2 more explosions and 'at the gate' radiation levels increasing to '3 years normal in 1 hour' the situation at Fukushima is going from bad to worse. Ivor Bennett a reporter for the Russian TV station RT speaking from a location 100kms from Fukushima said: "All international journalists I have spoken to are on their way out of Japan." RT predicted that the radiation cloud would reach Tokyo in 10 hours. A useful YouTube LINK to RT is NOW at the top of this page.

UPDATE: 11:01am 14th March (Japanese time) a 2nd explosion. This one at Fukushima Reactor no. 3 - the MOX Plutonium-Uranium Reactor. The heavily censored coverage at BBC World and CNN, where the views of industry's yes-men are being trotted out, is becoming embarrassing. Try: Sky News, Al Jazeera and Euronews. They seem OK for now. Best quality information is currently coming from the Russian TV station RT.

Because of what is happening NOW in Japan the nuclear energy era is approaching GAME OVER.

The annual honorarium, a system in which an obscene sum of money often exceeding $100,000 p.a. (paid for lending one's so-called good name to dubious and dangerous nuclear projects), a sum which drops as silently and invisibly as fallout in monthly installments into the ex-politico's hands (behind his and our backs) will at last, if there's any justice in the world, now come to an end.

Yes, the game is up! The world's corrupt politicians and others in receipt of annual nuclear industry honorariums are squirming with shame. With my own eyes I saw one of these nuclear industry yes-men literally squirming with shame only yesterday evening.

For too long the WORLD was fed disinformation piled upon disinformation. It became the preferred method of choice that the nuclear yes-men would blithely use to deal with unpleasant scenarios.

When the Japanese nuclear reactors were shut down we were told that Japan had 45 reactors, then the figure was raised to 50, now it has become 55. Before long it will doubtless become 60. And so on. Whatever the true number is, the plain fact is that the claim that Japan must have these nuclear reactors is a LIE.

These 'indispensable' nuclear reactors situated like a ring of fire around Japan produce a mere 30%* of the nation's requirements! This is nothing less than lunacy! Energy savings could bring nearly that much.

And so the earthquake's truth reveals more than lunacy; it reveals a WORLD living with a scientific madness fueled by political and industrial greed and a willingness to turn a blind eye for the sake of the so-called comfortable life; a comfortable life full of waste; a life where out-of-town supermarkets and luxury car showrooms are springing up like mushrooms on what used to be agricultural land; a good life where food is being grown to be thrown away or turned into petrol for luxury cars whilst millions of people have nothing to eat.

Regarding alternative energy sources the WORLD was, since the advent of nuclear energy, always told that these other methods were uneconomical, even impossible, that they would not work and even if they did they were likely to prove highly inefficient. These green energy sources will NOW suddenly and mysteriously be found to be in fact the most efficient and, most importantly, the cleanest and safest. Wind, tidal, solar, hydro, and geo-thermal will become almost overnight efficient and safe. Many other 'new' green energy sources will also be quickly developed and harnessed.

For the nuclear industry with its corrupt lobby and its grasping servants to greed and their many lackeys the GAME will soon be OVER. The obscenity is rapidly coming to an end.
_____

*(i) there were plans to increase this figure to 50% - obviously these plans will now be shelved (ii) is it mere coincidence that the head of IAEA is a Japanese?

Thursday 10 March 2011

OFFICIAL NOTICE

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITODAY THE SQUARE NAMED AFTER THE LEADER
HAS BEEN RENAMED
THE SQUARE HAS NOW BEEN RENAMED
IN HONOUR OF THE LEADER
FOR THE LEADER FREED US FROM THE TYRANNY OF THE LEADER
THE SIGNS BEARING THE LEADER'S NAME WILL BE BORNE AWAY
AND REPLACED WITH THE SIGNS BEARING THE LEADER'S NAME
WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT ONE OF THE SIGNS WILL APPEAR
IN THE OLD MILITARY NAVAL AND HISTORY MUSEUM
A BUILDING ERECTED IN HONOUR OF A LEADER
NO-ONE REMEMBERS TODAY

Poetry Rat News

A reminder that Poetry Rat (our poetry for kids page) is awaiting suitable poem/s! My thanks to Peter Newton for the first 2 poems recently received and now published on the Poetry Rat page.

image:gw2011

Tuesday 8 March 2011

!st haiku contest - supporting small press publishing

The prize for the winning° haiku is a copy of KRAX 47. You may, if you are interested in entering this purely-for-fun contest, read my recent review of this eccentric rarity via the convenient Pulsar link in the right margin. My review is immediately preceded by a review of KRAX 46 from Neil Brooks. Best then to read both reviews, especially if you are not familiar with the KRAX ethos. Then you'll have an idea what you could be letting yourself in for!


Entry is quite simple. Just type a caption to the above photo in the comments box. This is one competition where the winner will NOT be judged on merit but will simply be the haiku which appeals to my unfathomable KRAXNESS. Anyone can enter. No need to be an experienced haikuist (is there such a word?). A child of ten, as Kit Williams* famously said of his hidden golden hare, is as likely to win as anyone else. Now go for it!

°life, like poetry, is not about winning
*author of Masquerade (pub: Jonathan Cape Ltd)
image: gw2011

Fresh spaghetti worms


"Who will eat today
of my steaming dish
of terebellidae

"My whitish, bluish, greenish,
subclass sedentaria
pulled smooth from sand-

"-&-mucus tubes
found fresh last night
beneath the coral reefs

"O
transparentto translucentto!
- delicious worms for you?"
_____
gw2011

Monday 7 March 2011

Beach scene


- for all those children mysteriously missing

to strawberry sun
white cryptic branching vase
lavender rope slate pencil mat
heart urchin red hair swimming
common blue true unbranched tulip
orange ball small venus girdle
thimble feather chocolate lynx
goose-neck nimble spray
umbrella bubble cryptic teardrop

peppermint
bleeding teeth pearly orange crusting
tangled ribbon hairy clinging
split crown speck claw decorator
white speckled hermit stove pipe stinker
swollen claw
convoluted barrel
five toothed studded measled cowrie
tiny blunt armed inshore arrow

_____
gw2011
note: text uses only names of reef creatures
image: fotosearch royalty free

Orange Ball Sponge

cratered moon
risen up to harvest
dressed in pitted orange
coat of sediment and algae
pumps watered food and air
in coral reef where it osculates
its waste in cracks and crannies
caves and under ledges

gw2011